Irony: Dark Reign Trilogy, Part 1
by LilLolaBlue
Summary: Irony? Irony is when you’ve wanted something for almost 40 years and never realised you’ve had it all along. Iron Man's the World’s Most Wanted, but not by any of his fellow masks. But Harlequin? It's good to have her with him, at the end of all things.
1. Reeling In The Years

**IRONY**

**Disclaimer: I only own the characters I have created, the rest is property of Marvel and the mouse.**

**Chapter One: Reeling In the Years**

**New York City, 2009**

**I: Logan**

"You're goin' to go to him, ain't you?"

The Harlequin turned around and saw Wolverine standing accusingly in the doorway of the master bedroom of her bunker.

"He's my friend, Logan."

"Darlin', Tony Stark ain't a friend to any of us, anymore. Not since the Civil War."

"That's in the past. He's trying to make amends."

"Tryin'? Shit, we're livin' in the ground like rats because Norman Osbourne walked right into the crack that the war made in our world! Steve's dead because of that fuckin' war! Nobody woulda gone for Registration if Stark hadn't got behind it. He woulda put you away. And Eddie. And me. And our sons."

"Don't drag Jack into this. Or Tommy. Just because you're his father don't mean you get to throw him up to me! Besides, Logan, you know as well as I do that the bottom fell out in '85, after that stunt Ozzy pulled. It was only a matter of time. The Keene Act, the fuckin' Death Squid. Apocaylpse. Onslaught. The Civil War. Now this. The hits just keep on comin'. That's the way it is. Did you blame Onslaught on Charlie?"

"No."

"Then cut Tony some slack. He's givin' up the thing he loves the most to save us. To make amends, and cut that fuck Osbourne off at his knees."

"His life?"

"No. His mind."

"I can't understand you, Liv. You fought against him. And you swore up and down that you would have hung with Cap if you had to."

"I would have."

"Then what the fuck are you goin' to Stark, for?"

"You remember what I told you, Logan, right before we took our blood oath?"

"Yeah."

"I told you I'm in this for the long haul, that when I'm your friend I'm your goddamn friend and even after every motherfucker on God's Green Earth has turned their back on you, I'll still walk ten miles barefoot over broken glass to come to your side. Well, I'm Tony Stark's friend, too. Fuck war, and fuck politics, and fuck Norman Osborne, too. Tony needs me. I gotta go."

"What do you want me to tell Eddie, when he gets back?"

"He knows I'm a stand up kind of broad. Tell him I had to stand up."

Logan was about to say something when their son, Tom Howlett, AKA Patch, appeared behind him in the doorway.

"Hi Pa. OK, Ma, I got the car all gassed up like you told me. When will you be back?"

"Wait a fuckin' second! Tommy, d'you know where she's going?"

"Yeah."

"To Stark?"

"Pa, he's gonna die. Hard. He might as well not die alone."

Still protesting, Logan followed his son and Liv out of the bedroom and all the way onto the kitchen, where Jack Blake, AKA Viking, was eating his breakfast of Froot Loops and milk out of his horned helmet, the way he always did.

Jack was a lot like his father.

Good times, bad times, apocalypse, it was all the same to Jack Blake.

"That better not be the last box." Tom said to his twin.

"What if it is?"

"If it is, you're stickin' your America's Most Wanted ass out on the street to go get another box, I'm not."

"Relax, bro. It's not." Jack chuckled.

"Jacky, you know what your mother's doing?" Logan asked.

"Will you quit callin' me Jacky, Uncle Logan? I'm 29 fuckin' years old. It's embarrassin'."

"That ain't what I was askin' you about."

"Yeah. An' I know Pop's gonna shit about it when he gets back. But, what the fuck? If Stark's gonna die, and die like a slobberin' fuckin' dog, let him die lookin' at the last mask who don't wanna see him do it." The Comedian's son observed.

"That's what I said." Tom agreed.

He sat down with a bowl, with Liv's two red-headed sons, and Jack pushed the milk across to him.

"Siddown, Uncle Logan. Have some fuckin' cereal. Ma ain't gonna listen to you, or me and if my dad was here, she wouldn't listen to him, either."

Logan sat down.

"Well, I guess you're right. Besides, it ain't like she could get killed, or anything."

"Anybody can get killed. Everybody dies. Even people like us. Lookit Tony. You woulda thought that extremis woulda made him fuckin' invincible." Tom said.

"Everybody thought Cap was fuckin' invincible." Jack interjected.

"Nobody's fuckin' invincible. My big brother's out there with that Muramasa Blade, and he ain't lookin to shave with it. If he kills you, Pa, I'll hafta see how invincible he is." Tom observed.

"We'll hafta see how invincible he is, Tommy. Kill 'em all…"

"…an' let the Devil sort 'em out in Hell, Jack."

The brothers clinked their cereal bowls together, resolutely.

"What the fuck are we talkin' about Hell and dyin' for? Nothin' could kill me before the mutation. I'd like to see the fuckers try an' kill me now. You boys wanna hot breakfast? I don't gotta leave right now." Liv said.

She started banging pots and pans around.

"How the fuck is she getting to the Middle East?" Logan asked his son and his godson.

Jack shrugged.

"Sometimes with Ma, it's like what they say about gays in the army. Don't ask, don't tell." Tom observed.

He and Jack both found that funny, and Logan tried not to laugh, but he found himself doing it, anyway.

Maybe they had a point.

Tony used to be his friend, his teammate, even.

Cap had died horribly, and alone, except for strangers and his familiar murderer, brainwashed into killing him.

He wouldn't have wanted to see Tony go the same way.

Let the man die in peace.

Maybe he deserved that.


	2. Brass In Pocket

**Chapter Two: Brass In Pocket**

**(Author's Note: You don't have to read "Blue Light Special" under Comics-Ironman to understand this story, but if you're lost, it might help.)  
**

**New York City, 1971 , NBC Television Studios, Barbara Walters Interview With Tony Stark**

(The interview is already in progress. Millions of Americans, including a large group of "maskies" who are convinced Tony Stark is Iron Man, are glued to their TV sets. Tony, of course, is crying. Crocodile tears, but crying, nonetheless.)

WALTERS: Do you need a moment, Tony?

STARK: No, Barbara. I'll be fine. (Wipes eyes)

WALTERS: Tony, you've had all the opportunities in life a man could get. Good looks. Intelligence. Success. Why? Why did you become an alcoholic?

STARK: I won't lie to you, Barbara. I could say that it was because of what happened to me in Vietnam. (touches chest plate, inadvertently) But I was an alcoholic long before that. Sure, I had it all. Money. Looks. The best of everything. Nothing was too good for Anthony Edward Stark. I drank hundred year old Scotch, smoked imported English cigarettes, every night, practically was another affair of dry martinis and white tux and black tie. And the girls, the beautiful girls, sometimes, just to look at them could take a man's breath away. Even mine. People looked at me and saw a charming man with a swashbuckler's grin, movie-star good looks and merry, laughing blue eyes. And they thought I led a charmed life. Unfortunately for me, I only had one problem. I turned out to be a scientific and mechanical genius. The one time I took an IQ test it was measured at 185, and I was blind, stinking drunk.

WALTERS: So you felt, well, isolated because of your extreme intelligence? Isolated from your peers, because, those things you mentioned, the money, the women, the parties, they weren't fulfilling for you? As a man of vision you needed…something more?

STARK: Precisely. I graduated from college in my teens, and had three masters degrees by the time I was in my early twenties. That, and all I've even been really interested in is my work. I've got a bit of the old Dr. Frankenstein in me. I don't have plans and theories so much as visions. Precise, detailed, extremely Promethean visions. As a scientist, I translate them into plans and theories, but when they come to me, when I'm working, it's like there's a monk, a mystic and an alchemist working side by side with me.

WALTERS: Not the kind of people who find high society life fulfilling.

STARK: I was warned, you know. When I was an undergraduate, one of my physics classes was taught by a sober and serious guest professor about twelve years older than me, a man well known to me and my family, Bruce Wayne. It was hard to be friends with Bruce, but I managed, then and now, and the older I get the more I realise that Bruce was right. He told me, "You'll be expected to at least pretend to be a do-nothing drunken playboy, but for God's sake, Tony, don't get serious about it. That shallow, silly, preposterous world of the congenitally wealthy and most of the time, arrogantly stupid is enough to drive most ordinary people crazy, let aloe someone with your brain. It'll drive you to drink." Naturally, Bruce hadn't meant it literally, but that was exactly what happened. By the time I was in graduate school in my early twenties, and also a captain of industry having made Stark Industries successful beyond anyone else's wildest dreams, I was both a workaholic and an alcoholic, although I never thought of myself as such. When I wasn't working, I was tripping merrily through the society milieu in an alcoholic twilight. You see, what was boring and stupid and, unbearable when I was sober was all so amusing when I was drunk. So, I passed from party to party, car to car, girl to girl and drink to drink wearing my like Flynn kind of grin. I knew that my life would collapse into rubble without my secretary and my butler, and I was cheerful about it. Some people had nobody, not a soul in the world, but I had Pepper and Jarvis, and my work.

WALTERS: It sounds like a lonely life. Not an unhappy life, just lonely. Unfulfilling. Empty?

STARK: I wasn't unhappy. I had a good time all the time. I'm a very merry drunk. I was having a ball, as long as the booze was flowing, and when you can afford to drink really, really, superlatively fine booze, it doesn't make you sick and you don't get that hung over. But, by the time I was in my late twenties, and I went to Vietnam to field test one of Stark Industries' weapons, I felt, when I was sober enough to do so, like something of a hollow man. Like living a double life since I was in my teens had left me with a hole in my heart where my soul should have been. Of course, I returned from Vietnam with a relatively small, self-charging Tesla coil hooked up to the literal hole in my heart, and I had located my soul, and his name is Iron Man.

WALTERS: Tony, you do know that making a statement like that is only going to fuel the rumours that the man in the Iron Man suit is not your bodyguard, but that you are the man in the suit?

STARK: Barbara, if it wasn't for my disability, I would be. Iron Man, what he does for the world and what he stands for, that's my heart and soul. My whole life changed after Vietnam. My life, my work, even my company. I became a truly happy man, not just a happy drunk.

WALTERS: But that was 1964. Here we are, in 1971, and you've just finished rehab. I think I understand you, Tony. I can certainly see where your frustration at being torn between the life you had and the life you wanted, and your sense of purposelessness, and aimlessness would drive you to drink, but why, after what you've described to me as a soul-altering redemption, did you continue to drink?

STARK: Well, again, I'd like to blame it on Vietnam. I could lie and say that I haven't been in good health, that I have nightmares, but that would be disrespectful to all the men and women who fought in that war and left it in that condition. I'm in excellent health, mentally and physically. And I haven't had to change my life at all. In any way. No, I kept drinking because, well, by that time I was a drunk, and an arrogant drunk. I thought I could handle it, and I didn't think I had a problem. Not until Tijuana.

WALTERS: Are you referring to when you were jailed in Tijuana with the Harlequin, and Iron Man and she broke you out?

STARK: Not the breakout. Barbara, I almost died in that jail because I got so drunk that I passed out in the street and damaged my chest piece. If Harlequin hadn't been there to help me with my repairs, and summon Iron Man, I would have died. Naturally, I tried to blame it on some conspiracy against me, but Harlequin was honest with me. She looked me in the eye and told me, Tony, you're a drunk. And she was right.

WALTERS: So it was the Harlequin who made you see the error of your ways?

STARK: She saved my life. And she had no reason to. And she was brutally honest with me about the endgame for an alcoholic. She left rehab for one last hurrah, but it was a miracle she lived to do it. She was at death's door when she went in, and some of it was related to, let's say, on the job injuries, but it was the drinking that have driven her to the point of death. I have no reason to be a drunk, and if the reasons I've offered sound like a spoiled rich brat whining around the sliver spoon in my mouth, it's because they are. Harlequin has every reason to be a drunk. I can't reveal them without revealing her identity, which she revealed to me in the jail in strict confidence, out of necessity, but almost everything horrible, unfair, and traumatic that can happen to a person has happened to her. If I lived her life, My God, I would have crawled into the bottom of a bottle and died. But she soldiered on through it all, doing her work. She impressed the Comedian enough that he made her his apprentice, and that's impressive. And she had the courage to put her foot down, and say, that's it, this boozing has to stop. And I thought to myself, my God, Tony, you, well, I'll say moron, if she can tough it out with the world on her shoulders, you can with pebbles on yours. So, through my contacts with the Avengers, via Iron Man, I went to the MORC, with Harlequin, and she finished and I started and completed the S.H.I.E.L.D. Moderation Program, which allows you to have four drinks per day, maximum, and recommends three. I've been out of rehab for thirty days now, I haven't relapsed, and I'm not going to.

WALTERS: It sounds to me like you care about her very deeply.

STARK: I do. But not in the way you think. I'm not in love with her. It's partly narcissism, of course. It's not every day I meet a fellow mad scientist. And under that mask and that Urban Guerrilla Commando Assault costume, she's a beautiful girl. But, seriously, the last thing I need is to fall in love, again. I've been unlucky, when it comes to that. The Harlequin is my friend. My real and true friend.

WALTERS: And you don't seem like the kind of man who has many of those.

STARK: No, Barbara. I don't.

(Tony is crying again. This time, for real. NBC goes to commercial. All over America, people are crying with him. Liv Napier, the Harlequin is one of them.)


	3. She's So Heavy

**Chapter Three: She's So Heavy**

**New York City, 1975**

**I: Tony**

One of the most comforting paradoxes about Trivelino J. Napier, Avatar of Entropy, was that you could set your clock by her.

There were certain things she did in certain ways all the time and Tony knew all of them.

She taught two classes at NYU. One in quantum physics, on Mondays and Fridays, and one on the Great Depression and World War II, also on Mondays and Fridays.

On Wednesdays, she taught Evolutionary Biology to the juniors and seniors at the X-mansion.

Every weekday, she worked at Dr. Manhattan's lab from 9AM until 1PM.

She met with Frank "Bear" Marcano, her eyes and ears in the street, at his father's pizza shop in Bensonhurst on Mondays and Fridays, and planned out her jobs for the week.

At night, every night but Wednesday and Thursday, she and her partner hit the streets, sometimes on her job and sometimes on his.

Wednesdays and Thursdays were her nights off the mask game.

She spent Wednesdays with Logan.

Tony had his eye on Mondays.

On Thursdays, she worked on her cars, sometimes at her own workshop, sometimes at Hollis mason's garage. In the afternoon, she had lunch with Hollis Mason and Dan Drieberg at the Gunga Diner.

On Thursday night, she and Eddie Blake went to the drive-in on Long Island.

On Sunday, at six, sharp, she had dinner with her family at Wayne Manor, and spent the night in.

Every night after she and the Comedian got done with their patrol, they ate at Grossmann's Diner.

And on Mondays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, Liv had lunch there at noon, precisely at noon, and Tony made a point of being there with her, when it was humanly possible for him to do so.

He liked to see her because she was his friend, but he also liked to see her to keep abreast of when Uncle Sam was sending the Comedian to a small South American country to blow up drug refineries, or assassinate a tinpot dictator with a shrimp fork.

While the cat's away, the mice will play.

Although you couldn't say Napalm was not into banging groupies, that didn't mean it was her preference.

Because, apart from the novelty of the thing, sometimes the service wasn't very good.

Tony had stopped by to see her in her office at NYU, and she had one of them under the desk, servicing her.

She had one hand in his long hair, and the other was a fist, pounding on the desk as she snarled at him.

"Is that the best you can do, you sunnuvabitch?"

Most people would have taken their leave, but not Tony.

He had breezed into the room like he owned it, sent the young man on his way, made good use of a paper napkin dipped in the glass of water on Napalm's desk, and got under said desk to finish the job.

As Wolverine always said, you've got to get in where you can fit in.

But that was neither here, nor there.

The important thing was that, groupies aside, Liv was something of a serial monogamist, and when the cat was away, the mouse often came to play with Tony.

And, on the previous night, when he had visited Grossmann's with a lady friend of his named Wendy, Liv came in, alone, and went and sat with Cap.

If she came in alone, that meant the Comedian wasn't around.

Poor Cap.

If you were a man, and you were interested in your virtue, and you had a girl waiting for you at home, the last place you wanted to be was with Liv Napier at midnight when she had just got done working.

Maybe Napalm wasn't the most conventionally beautiful woman in the world, but she was 1) a real redhead and although short, built like a brick shithouse 2) pretty in a very impish, naughty fairy sort of way 3) had mojo coming out of her ears.

She may have had ten tattoos and as many near-fatal scars on her body, motor oil under her fingernails, and she didn't own a skirt and wore men's OD underwear, but Napalm was the fire-haired porno queen of superhero ultravixens.

Quite possibly the dirtiest girl he had ever known.

Now, Steve Rogers was as good and decent of an All-American man as ever there was born in New York City, or anywhere else, and, oddly enough, Napalm had a thing for him.

He was the one who got away.

Minus the bad motherfucker part, Steve was her type.

She knew she'd never get anywhere with him, and Liv wasn't the kind of woman to throw herself where she wasn't wanted, but she wasn't very good at hiding her emotions or her intentions, and there was something in her manner that always brought little beads of sweat out onto Steve's forehead.

He had sat there, laughing into his sandwich, watching Napalm, obviously horny as a junkyard dog on a full moon, wolfing her dinner and inadvertently rubbing her king-size tits across the table, talking shop with poor Steve but giving him these ferocious looks that she wasn't even aware of.

Which she would not have been doing if the Comedian was around.

Tony arrived at Grossmann's at about ten till 12 the next day.

When Napalm came in, she just sat down; Max Grossmann knew what she wanted, she always had the same thing.

"So, who was that hoity-toity broad you had in here last night? Yunno, Miss Plastic Fantastic? She looked like a real drag. What's-her-face, Candy, Sandy, Penny…whoever the fuck? The conceptual artist doll you was balling. The one who thought it was a complement when Yoko Ono went to her showing and said that she was a derivative talentless hack, bottom-feeding off of the shit that better artists dropped."

Typical Liv-speak.

She spoke in an amalgam of film noir, Brooklyn thug, and street hippie.

"You mean Wendy? "Was" is the operative word. Wendy has been having a contemplative phase in her psychosexual development as an artist, in an attempt to unblock her creative channelling."

Napalm raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, I see. She wanted you to pony up with some of the green stuff to finance her latest assault on the arts with her bullshit and she told you that until you made with the bread you were kicked out of bed?"

"Pretty much."

"So you didn't get laid last night, either?"

"Nope."

"Yeah, what a fuckin' drag. I get lazy, havin' Eddie around. Logan too. Used to be I went out every day, lookin' for action, yunno? I usedta hit those streets at noon. But now, yunno, havin' had the best, I can't get it up to go hunt for the rest. After I got done talkin' to Cap, yunno, it was 2 in the morning and I hadda be at the lab at 9. So I just went home, cracked open a coupla my comic books, an' took care of business before I hit the sack. You?"

"Well, after I got mercilessly teased all night, I had a very pleasant five minutes in the bathroom with Miss March. And, considering that I'm about, oh, three phone calls away from having Miss March, anytime I'd like, that was quite a raw deal."

"Couldn't ya even get her ta give ya a lousy hand job?"

"After I told her I wasn't giving her 15 grand, she locked me out of my own bedroom. And it was three in the morning."

"Whatta bitch."

"I'm seeing her again, tonight."

"Why?"

"To get rid of her, I expect. How's your research going? You haven't published for awahile."

They had lunch, and got into a rather loud discussion about electromagnetic radiation and black holes, which continued as they walked out into the street.

Liv was going to take the subway to NYU, but this was an argument Tony wanted to win, so he drove her back to campus, and followed her all the way to her office, where her student assistant, Peter Parker, was arranging her papers.

"Pete, you know I'm right, under the right circumstances, theoretically speaking, you could use EM to pass matter through a black hole without it's particles being atomised, couldn't you?"

"You mean on a quantum level? Theoretically."

"Screw theoretically, Pete! I mean in reality!" Tony argued.

"If you were Dr. Manhattan, maybe." Pete replied.

"See?"

Tony grinned at her.

"I see. So you and Jon are doing private space-time research in your spare hours. And with government funds, on government property. Shocking."

Liv looked furious at him as he settled into her chair, behind her desk.

"And using all that outdated equipment in that dreary basement lab. Toiling away in secret. Of course, you realise, if you would have brought the idea to me, I could have set you up with the best lab, and the best equipment, in the best location that money can buy? I'm sure Jon would feel more comfortable doing such important research legitimately. And, as long as I'm in on it, I'm sure neither one of you would mind having little old me, involved? Seeing as how I already am? So, when would you like to start?"

"You know what, Tony? I hate you the most when you're right."

He picked up her phone.

"I'll talk to Jon. You go teach your class, I'll arrange everything. Pete, you're studying physics, aren't you?"

"In my spare time."

"Good. Are we hiring him?"

"I'm hiring him, Tony. Me. This is my project."

"No, it's our project. Yours, mine and Jon's. But you can be in charge, I don't mind."

Harlequin and Spider Man left the office.

"Did you just get screwed, Liv?"

"No. We were just negotiating. Tony never included Jon on the project before; that's what we was holding out for."

"You and Dr. Manhattan?"

"Yes. We've been wanting to get Tony involved, bur I never liked his terms."

"So Stark Industries has more advanced technology than the US Government?"

"Pete, you have no idea. Listen. Whatever you see in Tony's private lab, and whatever we do, just keep your eyes open and your mouth shut."

"I don't know about the mouth shut part, but I won't tell any industrial secrets."

"Good."

***

"It's ridiculous, Pepper! How could a woman be in love with Eddie Blake? I almost understand the ones who've never met him, but she works with him!"

"Tony, Liv is your friend. She has, unfortunately for her, joined that very small fraternity. You eat lunch with her at Grossmann's almost every day. And she's worked with you on a few projects, in and out of costume. And every time the Comedian goes off on one of his secret missions, when I get here in the morning, she's here in her military underwear, making breakfast, with those pigtails swinging around her head, smoking like a chimney. What more do you want?"

"For one thing, my own day of the week. Logan has one."

"Yes. Because Eddie Blake hasn't threatened to tear off his private parts and make him eat them if he touches Liv again."

"I don't think he means that. He has to know about us, at this point. She doesn't keep secrets from him."

"In that case, he doesn't even consider you a credible threat."

"What do you mean, Pepper?"

"I know you, Tony. You play for keeps. You don't want to borrow Liv. You want to steal her. Steal her from her government job with Dr. Manhattan, steal her from the Justice League and steal her from Eddie Blake. You want it all, and you want it now, and you can't face that you are just not going to get it."

"No, Pepper. I just haven't got what I want, yet."

"You are incorrigible, Mr. Stark."

***

"…don't you see, Anthony, the symbolism beyond the, the mere semiotics of the concept, of the paradigm, the zeitgeist, I'm trying in a fully hermeneutic way, to reach the jist, the quantum jist…"

Quantum jist?

How many words can this woman string together, incorrectly, just to make a point that doesn't mean anything?

"Wendy, darling, please. You've lost me. And this is my fifteen large we're talking about."

Lost me completely.

_She's a beautiful girl, she really is. Black hair. Blue eyes. Long, long legs. It would be nice if her tits were a little bigger, but they're just perfect._

_ And she has a lovely mouth._

_ If only she would shut it, because the more she flaps those lovely lips, the less interested I am._

"Oh, Anthony, you're so un-creative. You don't understand anything about art. Anyway, the mere pittance the NEA has offered me…"

"Mere pittance? Five thousand dollars is a mere pittance?"

_I am not giving this woman fifteen thousand dollars just so I can have guaranteed steady pussy on Tuesday nights; I don't care how many medals for gymnastics she has._

_ However, it might be worth it, just to get rid of her._

_ And it is early, yet._

_ Where did I put my checkbook?_

"For the kind of meta-conceptual quantum event I'm formulating, yes, it is."

**WHAM! **

"Anthony, what was that?"

"Just me, toots. Time to hit the bricks, baby."

That, of course was Napalm, swaggering into the apartment like she owned it.

Tony stood up.

"Hello, Tony. I was in the neighbourhood, looking for some action, so I figured I'd drop in." she said.

Just like Wendy wasn't there at all.

"Pardon me?" Wendy asked.

"Are you still here, doll? Didn't I tell you to make tracks?"

"Whoever you are, I don't know, Anthony's mechanic, or someone like that, you are interrupting a serious conversation we are having about modern art."

Liv turned to Tony and gave him a Groucho Marx kind of look.

"Dig this." She said, and turned to Wendy.

"Modern art, huh?"

She sat down on the couch where Tony had been sitting.

"I'll get us a few drinks, and we can talk. You've never met Na-, er, Liv, before. She's a colleague of mine." He announced.

"Oh. So you're a scientist, too. Do you work for Tony?"

"Well, I do a lot of things. I do some research with Dr. Manhattan, for the government, and I teach a couple of classes at NYU and the X-Institute."

"You look like a mechanic."

"Well, I like to fix things, yunno."

Liv took off her coat, and as Tony brought the drinks around, Wendy sucked her breath, sharply.

"Are those guns real?"

"Sure they are. I'm with S.H.I.E.L.D, I can't go around, unarmed."

"Is this some kind of joke? Tony, who is this woman?"

"Trivelino J. Napier. The J doesn't stand for anything." Tony told her.

Wendy knew that name.

Everybody who ever picked up an issue of the New York Post knew Trivelino J. "Napalm" Napier. She was the hell-raising, mad-genius, mysterious government agent, bar-brawling, street-fighting, man-eating offspring of the Joker, fostered by billionaire Bruce Wayne.

She was more likely to appear in the Times with Dr. Manhattan, now, but her and her ne'er do well swaggering war hero macho G-Man boyfriend Eddie Blake occasionally made the _Post_.

And you couldn't live in New York without hearing the rumour that they were secretly the Comedian and the Harlequin.

"I thought you looked familiar." Wendy told her.

She looked nervous.

"Yeah. Like your mechanic. And we're very good friends, me an' Tony. We were on the cover of Rolling Stone together, what year was that, Tony?"

"Last year."

"I don't read that magazine." Wendy sniffed.

"Shame. It was one of their better articles. They had us both dressed up like Dr. Frankenstein for the cover. So, you're an artist, huh?"

"Yes, I am." Wendy announced.

Liv gave Tony another Groucho Marx look, the Watch Me Give This Stiff the Business look.

"Well, I can't say I know everything about art, but I know somethin'. God only knows I had enough fuckin' education. I got like, two Masters Degrees. My stepfather, now, he's a big collector. I've picked up a little from him. But me, all I own a very nice blue period Picasso. It's just a little watercolour, though. So, let's talk art. Do you do fine art or modern art?" Liv asked.

"Fine modernistic, I'd say. I combine conceptual art with painting and sculpture."

"Oh, really? Tell me, how do you feel about the work of Man Ray? Rene Magritte? Salvador Dali? But I'm not bein' fair, I'm mixing my schools. You're a conceptual artist? Would you say that your work has its foundations in Dada, or in the Surrealist tradition? Or maybe a little bit of both. Of course, some people wouldn't know Duchamp from Cocteau, but, well, what do I know? But then again, maybe that's not modern enough. Are you more Pop Art? Andy Warhol? Peter Max? Seein' as how I love comics, I'm a big fan of Roy Lichtenstein. So is Tony. I bought him that lithograph over the mantle, the one that looks like Iron Man, for Christmas last year. It's a signed original. Spared no expense. No? No bells going off in your head, toots? Well, then, how about Steven Rogers?"

Tony bit his lip.

What Steve knew about modern art, you could stick in your ear and have enough room for the S.H.I.E.L.D Helicarrier.

When he showed him the Lichtenstein, Steve nodded, politely, and said it was very nice but it wasn't the best likeness of Iron Man, most of the kids in his apartment building subscribed to Iron Man comics, now was that a poster from one of the covers?

But, Liv had finally hit on a name that rang a bell with Wendy.

"Yes. Steven Rogers. Very much so. A great influence on my work."

Tony turned a snort of derisive laughter into a discreet little cough.

"Really? Listen, you dumb broad, Steve Rogers is Captain America. He's a great man, and a good guy, but the only thing he can draw is a map. Bye bye, now."

"Anthony?"

"Don't look at me, Wendy. I'm terrified of her. I just try to do what she says so she won't hurt me. She enjoys hurting people. Why else would you hang around with Eddie Blake?" Tony said, with the utmost in insincere sincerity.

"That's right. Don't look at him, sweetheart. You look at me. This chick's in charge here. I said blow. Scram. Take a powder. Move it or lose it. Dig? You got no more bullets in your gun, but…"

Liv actually drew on her.

With both hands.

"I got two clips in mine."

"You wouldn't!" Wendy gasped.

"You read the Post, dontcha? Ya heard Tony, din'cha? Whaddaya think? Wanna take the chance?"

Wendy grabbed her coat and left.

"And don't come back, ya plastic bitch! This ain't a bank!"

Liv put away her weapons, and slammed the door.

"So, how much cash did I just save you?" she asked, going over to the bar to fix herself another drink.

"Fifteen grand."

"Fifteen grand! For what?"

"Just to go away, at this point."

Liv downed the shot.

"Eddie's gonna be gone all week. And Logan's in San Francisco. You think you got fifteen grand worth of action for me, Iron Man?"

Tony grinned at her.

"Did I mention that, after a few modifications, yes I can do it in the suit? That alone is worth fifteen grand. But, I can afford to give you a few freebies. Would you like me to leave the face shield up, or down?"

"You're still not dirtier than I am, Tony."

"Oh yes I am. Game on?"

"You bet your ass!"

**Somewhere In New York City, 1984**

**II: Tony**

_"…how did you live like that, Napalm? In a filthy flop, drunk, hurt, hungry, like an animal? How?"_

_ "Shit, I dunno, Tony. You can get used to anything."_

Liv was right, you could get used to anything.

It was a cold November, this year, or maybe it just seemed colder, because…

_Because you're a homeless drunken bum, Tony?_

Probably.

His leg was beginning to fall asleep under him, and he shifted his weight, huddling into the old parka he'd found.

It had been snowing for a few days and it was colder than he thought it would be, colder than it ever seemed to be, before.

"Excuse me, sir, but could you spare a little money for an injured 'Nam vet down on his luck?"

He moved aside his parka and his shirt, showing his scar from the heart transplant.

"Get a job, rummy."

Rummy.

A fine way for them to talk to him.

Tony pulled up the hood, tucked his legs under him and opened his newspaper.

No more superhero stories. Thanks to the Keene Act. Well, not as many. Superman Foils Bus Crash. Captain America Addresses Brooklyn Law School. Comedian Kills Six Muggers With One Hand, Whole Subway Car Applauds.

Rorschach and Batman Still On Loose.

Harlequin Executes Church of Humanity Central Committee With Shrimp Fork, Gets Medal From Mayor.

She's Still A Beautiful Girl.

Big deal.

So what?

"Good luck to you, you sonsabitches. Better your ass than mine."

Tony had already gotten his bottle, and the trash cans outside McDonalds were always bountiful, so it was about time to head to the abandoned building he called home.

It was supposed to be haunted, something with the former X-Men and one of the Great Old Ones had destroyed it.

People were afraid to go there.

It was said that the place would drive you mad, give you a lifetime of bad dreams.

Tony did not notice the difference.

He scrambled over the slabs of ruined concrete, and climbed down bits of wreckage, down under the Earth into what was once a parking garage, until he came to his home, in the corner of the vast concrete tomb.

An old sleeping bag on top of a rotting wooden skid, a beat-up knapsack, and a fence made of milk crates.

Home Sweet Home.

He finished off his bottle, and lay down to go to sleep.

***

The next day he picked a different corner to beg on, slouched inside his big coat, watching knees and shoes and feet go by.

"Hey, lady? We're getting close to the holidays. I used to be a superhero before we all got fired. Can you spare some change?"

"Really? Which one?"

"Ant Man. I was in the Avengers."

"And you couldn't get work after that?"

"No ma'am. I'm disabled. Bad ticker."

He showed her his scar.

"I never did like that stupid law. You poor man. I wish I had more to give you."

She gave him five dollars.

Five whole dollars.

Maybe that was the right schtick.

Maybe he could get enough money for a bed for the night.

Take a shower, go to a bar, find a woman.

Get laid.

Really, really, really need to get laid.

"Excuse me, sir. I used to be in the Avengers before the Keene Act. Can you help a former superhero who's down on his luck?"

"Yeah, right, buddy. And I'm fuckin' Superman."

Maybe the next one.

He was rooting through his knapsack when he heard a car pull up by the curb and screech to a stop.

Not unusual in busy downtown Manhattan.

But this particular pair of legs and feet, of Keds with a hole in either toe, looked very familiar.

No point in lying.

"Napalm, how is it I'm a bum, and your shoes are older than mine are?"

She didn't say much.

"You been on quite a bender, huh, Tony."

"You could say that. Did the baby live?"

"The one you brought to the hospital. Yeah. What happened to the mother?"

"She died. She was a nice girl."

"Well, you don't look so good, yourself. C'mon. Let's get you off the street, huh?"

"It's no use, Napalm. I have nothing left. No money. No home. Where am I going to go?

"With me. C'mon, on your feet."

She hauled him to his feet, tossed his knapsack into the back, shoved him in the passenger seat and got back in and drove away.

***

"Where are you taking me?" he finally asked.

"My hideout. You can live down in the bunker, as long as you need to. Money is no object."

"Sounds good. Conditions?"

"Back to five drinks a day. And you have to start working on something."

"No, I meant my conditions. But I'm alright with yours. I want my own day of the week."

"Just until you're on your feet?"

"Agreed."

"What day?"

"What's today."

"Monday."

"Fine with me. Where are the boys?"

"With their Aunt Edie. Until five. Why?"

"I'd rather they didn't see me like this. Or anybody else, either, for that matter."

Liv put the radio on.

"Ya know somethin', Tony? I like you with long hair. Don't get it cut, just yet."

Tony laughed.

"How can you still find me attractive? I've been wearing the same clothes for two months, and I only washed them twice. I bathe with Wet Naps, when I can."

"Hell, Tony, I been where you're at, now. I'm a pathetic gutter drunk too, remember? Who'm I to judge?" Liv said.

***

Under Harlequin's Hideout, a warehouse on the docks that she converted to a garage, was a two level bunker.

The deepest level was a lab, and even deeper was a large apartment even bigger and just as posh as the loft over the warehouse.

It was big enough to house six people.

Liv often harboured rogue working superheroes there, and now she would harbour him.

"Rorschach's livin' in the room at the end of the hallway."

Liv knocked on the door.

"Just a minute. Need my mask?"

He opened the door.

"You're gonna have some company."

Tony watched the patterns on Rorschach's mask shift.

"Good to see you, Iron Man. Some of us thought you were dead." He said.

"It was a near miss."

Liv led him further down the hall.

"That's the john. You can have any one of these bedrooms down this way. I gotta go take care of some things. Be seein' youse, later."

The first thing Tony did was take a shower, the second thing was find a bedroom and go to sleep.

When he woke up, Liv and Peppere were putting some of his clothes in the closet.

He didn't mind Pepper being there.

He was going to need her, too.

"Do you think he'll be angry when he finds out I told you?"

"No. He can't find his shoes without me. Look at him. He looks terrible."

"I dunno, Pepper. I like him with long hair."

"What? How can you say that? He was living on the street, like an animal, for…for months! You can't just start crawling all over him!"

"Awww, Jesus, Pepper, I lived like that from the time I was 16 until I was 22. When you're a drunk the way me an' Tony are drunks, you always end up in the gutter. I didn't end up in the street too often because I got an Uncle who owns a bar. He'd let me drink there without hassling me, and kept one of the flop rooms over the place open for me to sleep in, anytime I wanted, no questions asked? But, that don't mean I never lay in an alley all night, drunk off my ass and beat all to hell. He cleans up well. We'll get some food in him, get him back on the wagon, he'll be alright."

"Well, don't overtax him."

"There's nothing wrong with the man. He just went on a bender. You just don't know drunks. When he wakes up, he's going to want four things. A beer, a sandwich, some pussy, and a shoulder to cry on. He can have four drinks a day, five at the most under the program and the rest, I'm glad to give him. He can live here as long as he wants to."

"Well, I don't want him to know I know, yet. I'm going home. Thank you for including me, Liv."

"Well, Tony needs you."

"He needs all the help he can get."

"I know. I'll give it to him."

Tony waited a while to pretend to wake up.

"Good morning, sunshine. Are you living here in secret, or can I tell Cap where you are? He's really worried about you."

Tony thought about it.

"You can tell Steve, at least. But no one else. Not until I can get myself together, a little. Liv, listen. I want to make something clear to you. I have nothing. Zero. I'm completely broke. Destitute. I don't know how you even got my clothes."

"I bought them. And your tools. Pretty much all the contents of your penthouse. I have everything in storage."

Tony was thunderstruck.

"Why?"

Napalm shrugged.

"Well, it's not like I can't afford it. You're my friend, Tony. You can live in my bunker, and use my lab, and well, you might have a roommate if somebody else needs to flop here for awahile, but as long as you need to stay to get your shit together, fine. Whatever you need. A lawyer. Money. Credit. Supplies. Flunkies. Pepper's salary. Move her in here. Anything."

Liv sat beside him on the bed, and pulled out one of her guns.

"You want Obediah Stane? I'll shoot him right in the fuckin' head. You want his head? I'll pickle it in a jar and give it to you. Tony, I'm in this for the long haul. When I'm your friend, I'm your goddamn friend. Even after every motherfucker on God's Green Earth has turned their back on you, I'll still walk ten miles barefoot over broken glass to come to your side."

What do you have left, Tony?

I have this space, a mile beneath the city, to begin again. I have my friend Liv, and her money, her resources, and her intelligence.

And, of course, I have me.

"What do you think of 'Circuits Maximus' as a name for a company, Liv?"

She put the gun away.

"It's catchy. I like it."

"I heard what you said to Pepper, you know. About the four things I would want when I came to."

"Was I right?

"Yeah. Thank you, Liv. This is the second time you've saved my life. "

"Hey, man, what are friends for?"


	4. War

**Chapter 3: War **

**New York City, 2007**

**I: Tony**

For the life of him, Tony couldn't understand why Cap, or any of his followers would make war between heroes over Superhero Registration.

To him, the issue was crystal clear.

It was an ultimatum from the government.

Clean up your act, or we'll bring back the Keene Act.

And he doubted anyone would be dropping a Giant Psychic Death Squid on New York anytime soon, and that was what it took to get the Keene Act repealed the first time.

Every minute the war went on, it made superheroes look bad in the eyes of the people they had sworn to protect. It was confusing and frightening for Tony, having to fight his friends; he could only imagine how it was for ordinary people.

The Anti-Reg papers, they called him a fascist, they compared him to Hitler, they said he was a Machiavellian monster, another Senator McCarthy.

But he had thought he was right, and he thought it was worth it.

Until Steve was assassinated.

There was no more peace for Tony, and no more sleep, and despite the rationalisations he heaped on himself, only now could he see it had gone too far.

Captain America, the Sentinel of Liberty, was dead.

Tony Stark had lost his best friend.

The mask world was in shambles.

And who was left to pick up the pieces?

Iron Man, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

He tried to be positive.

Tony tried not to think of himself as having betrayed all of them.

***

In his office at S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters, Tony worked almost around the clock, trying not just to adjust to his new position, but to heal the rift in the superhero community.

He offered complete amnesty to any former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents or associates who had sided with Captain America in the conflict, masks and non-masks alike.

Only a few hours after he made the announcements, he heard murmurs in the halls.

People saying "Good morning, Mr. Director."

There was only one other person who held that title.

Tony left his office, and beheld before his wondering eyes the Director of Covert Operations unlocking the door of the office he had occupied since 1954.

"Eddie? You came back?"

"Sure I did. Who the fuck were you gonna get to replace me?"

"I was worried about that. But…you and Steve…"

"Yeah, me an Steve. You an' Steve, too. This ain't a social club, Stark. Steve an' I have been doin' what we had ta do for the good of this country since you were in diapers. I ain't about to stop now."

"What about Liv?"

Eddie Blake laughed.

"She wants to cut your fucking head off and mount it on the wall. But she'll get over it. She;s always threatenin' to cut somebody's head off an pickle it, but she's only done it once. You got bigger problems than the kid."

Iron Man followed the Comedian into his office.

"Oh?"

"You don't see nothin' fishy in alla this? The way that shit in Stanford with Nitro just happened to go down, right when they started makin' noise in DC about Registration? Wasn't that convenient? Jimmy was onto something there, with that Damage Control deal. I'm tellin' you, it's a put-up job, Shellhead. This was all a catered affair, and us masks were only invited to the party to be the entertainment. It started with the mutants, and they spread it over to us. It was a cinch there'd be war. And look how it ended. The public's scared shitless. All the major teams are in shambles. The Bat and Supes are hardly speakin'. Thor's gone, Cap's dead, and who's holdin' the bag? You. Somebody planned this. To make us weak, so they could make their move. Now I don't know who they are yet, but I got some ideas. I'm workin' on it."

"Do you have proof of this?"

"No. But I will."

"It does make sense. Do you think it goes all the way to the top?"

"What? To Dubya? Shit, he makes his father look like Albert Einstein. That dim-bulb drunken sunnuvabitch ain't smart enough for that. Cheney, he's another story. Just what we needed. Another Dick in the White House. That cocksucker. Tries to act like he's higher up than me. Who the fuck does he think he is? He's smarter than Georgie, though. Christ, it's been so long since we had anybody worth a shit as President, it almost makes me miss Jack Kennedy. I admit it, I had that gun pointing in the wrong direction. Shoulda shot Dick Nixon, saved the world a whole lotta trouble. But I fixed that mistake, didn't I? And, at least Bubba had a brain, and me' an him usedta have some good times. Get some broads, case 'a beer, yunno? But no, I think this is an outside threat. But I got people looking into it."

Some of the casual admissions the Comedian made to him in conversation over the years, knowing he wasn't going to say shit, really shocked Tony.

That was probably why he made them.

"What people? I'm the Director, shouldn't I know about this?"

"When I know something, you'll know. That's the way it worked with Nick. The less people who know what I'm doin', my end, the better."

The Director retuned to his office to find Jack Blake waiting for him.

Jack, like his father, was rumoured to be a mutant passing for a normal human.

There was no rumour when it came to his twin brother, Tom Logan.

He was Wolverine's son, and had inherited his father's characteristics, and, like Wolverine, he hadn't been de-powered.

They were a team, Viking and Patch, and worked with various masks on different missions, but always together.

That was what Jack was there about.

"Mr. Director, the Old Man wants me and Patch to do some sniffin' for him. I wanted to get permission to bring Patch in on it, because I wasn't sure if your amnesty extends to mutants."

Tony had known Liv's sons since they were toddlers, and the way Jack was talking to him like he didn't know him didn't feel too special.

"Jack, don't be so goddamn formal. Of course amnesty extends to mutants. You are people too. Your mother and I have been trying to convince the world of that since 1971. Where the hell is Tommy? Is he holed up somewhere with his father?"

"No. He's down in the lab. With Ma. Don't go down there, Tony. Pop's got this conspiracy idea, which sounds pretty good, and Tommy, he genuinely forgives you, but Ma's mad. Real mad. She came back because she thinks Cap would have wanted her to. And she believes Pop's theory. But, and I ain't kiddin', she might kill you soon as look at you."

"That doesn't surprise me. What about you, Jack?"

Jack Blake shrugged, in the same way his father did.

"I didn't take sides during the war. Why start now? Hell, we're supposed to fight the badguys, not each other. I ain't mad at you, Tony. You coulda been my father as easy as Pop was, yunno? Who even knows if a littlea you didn't slide in there, someplace, right? So, are we square?"

"We're square."

"Good. About time shit gets back to normal. Jesus."

His phone began to ring.

"Yeah, what, I'm workin'? Oh, it's you, honey. Sure, I can get away. I can always get away for you, you're my girl, you know that…who, Ivy? Shit, Ivy don't own me, an' I don't own Ivy…how long…that's plenty of time for me. Just don't wear anything complicated. I'll seeya in a little while."

Jack hung up his phone and got up to leave.

"Hey, Tony, Cap was your best friend. Just like a brother. If I fucked up and Tommy got killed, I'd feel bad enough, I wouldn't need nobody to make it worse for me, yunno? Now, I gotta go. Emma just called me. Cyke's gonna be away, tonight, and she sounds like she's dyin' for a real man."

Jack had a thing about bad girls. Every woman he'd ever been with was either a current or former villainess, or at least a lady of very questionable character.

His current girlfriend was Poison Ivy.

The Poison Ivy.

And he seemed to have her bewitched.

"Jack, you have to lay off the bad girls. It's going to kill you."

"You first, Tony."

He winked, conspiratorially, opened the door and left.

Tony picked up the phone, and asked his assistant to send Tom Howlett to his office.

***

Other than the fact they both had red hair and green eyes you would never know that Tom Howlett and Jack Blake were brothers, let alone twins.

They both looked like their fathers, and you couldn't find two men less physically similar than Eddie Blake and Logan.

Of course, the little quirk of nature that engendered their birth was fairly rare, but considering that Napalm had been sleeping with Wolverine one night and the Comedian the next for years, and that she was always casual with her birth control pills because she'd had six abortions and her doctors differed as to whether she was barren, the stage for their appearance was certainly set.

They had both inherited their mother's intelligence, however, and if casual paranoia and instinctive mistrust are inherited traits, those too.

Tom, however knew, doubtless knew something that Director Stark didn't, and he very much wanted to.

"How's your father?"

"Good."

"Where's your father?"

"Safe."

"Because we didn't part on the best of terms."

"I know."

"Look, Tom, your stepfather is sitting in his office because he's been Director of Covert Operations since 1954, and no one else can do his job. Your brother came here because his father asked him to a job. And your mother, well, she's probably looking for an opportunity to kill me and make it look like an accident. Something that your father would rejoice in, as the last words he uttered to me were a death threat. Why are you here, Tommy?"

Tom Howlett shifted his short, stocky, muscular body uncomfortably in his chair.

"Don't pay no attention to Jack. Sometimes he's just like Uncle Eddie, he hasta act like nothin' bothers him. It's all just business and it's all a fuckin' joke. Jack didn't take sides in the war because he didn't want to go against you, or Cap, an' he was on his way here when he even smelled amnesty. Jesus, Tony, you could just have easily been either one of our fathers as Pa and Uncle Eddie. We've known you just as long, and you been around almost as much. Hell, if it wasn't for you, when that whole squid thing went down, we'd all be dead. I didn't take sides in the war, not because I'm a mutant, but because I couldn't go against you, no matter what I believed. And I'm here because I'm glad it's over. I know Pa blames you for everything, but just because I'm my father's son, it don't mean I'm my father."

"Tom, I don't want to cause a rift between you and Logan."

"I explained to him I was comin' in. I explained to him why. I said you were like family to me, and I couldn't turn my back on you any more than I could turn my back on him. He didn't like it. But he understood. I think he'll come around. Everybody will. It's just too soon to expect much."

"I know, Tom. What about your mother?"

"Ma? Don't hold your breath. You screwed the pooch on that one. She flat out wants to see you dead. She's so mad at you, she rants and raves about it and pounds the table. She really feels betrayed."

"But she's the one who took sides against me."

"That's not the way she sees it. Look at it from her perspective. You know and I know that Jack and Uncle Eddie are both mutants, and you know that she shot herself up with that serum she made from their blood and made herself one. And the whole world knows that me and my Dad are mutants. She feels the way my father does. That the Superhero Registration Act is just as Fascist and racist as the Mutant Registration Act. And what do you, one of her oldest and best friends in the world, among other things, whaddya you do? You support it. Then, to top it all off, Cap gets assassinated. That was the last straw. I'm tellin' you, Tony, she wants your blood. Until we can get her off the warpath, you better start sleepin' in the armor."

"I'm not afraid of your mother."

"That makes one of us. You seen my brother, today?"

"He just left to go meet Emma Frost."

Tom shook his head.

"He can't keep his hands outa that cookie jar. Ever since he was 17. I feel bad for Cyke. Every time he turns his back on that chick, she's fuckin' my brother. And he acts casual about it, but he's been sold on her since he was 17. Her too. She thinks the sun rises and sets on Jack Blake, but, I dunno, it's like this weird forbidden romance. I mean, I don't get it and I try to stay out of it. After all, what am I supposed to do? Rat on him? I'm not an X-Man. Not since Scooter kicked Professor X out of his own home. I don't owe that asshole shit. Fuck him. If there's anybody who's head I want, it's not yours, Tony, it's that fuckin' asshole Scooter."

"It's not your problem, Tom. And it's not just your brother, although, oddly enough, he may be the great, enduring and tragic love of Miss Emma Frost's shallow, manipulative shrewish life of bitchery and nymplomania. I stopped seeing Emma because I don't like having that much company."

"Aww, he's a fuckin' dick, but, poor Scooter, just the same."

"Well, he's clueless and happy. And I think Emma loves him, in her own special cold and unfeeling bitch way. She's just not the monogamous type. Might as well let it alone."

"You sound bitter, Tony."

"That's only because I am. That woman's a menace."

"Yeah. Jack's better off with Ivy."

"Precisely. He knows that. He's a smart man, your brother."

"Helluva lot smarter than Scooter."

"Jesus, Tom, isn't everyone else?"

Mr. Director had his first good laugh in a long, long time.

***

Tony thought about what Tom and Jack told him.

He thought about moving himself into S.H.I.E.L.D HQ, or relocating to the Hellicarrier, or even taking Tom's advice and sleeping in the Iron Man armor.

But, he didn't do it.

That night, and many nights after, he went home, and just got undressed and went to bed.

He wasn't going to run from Napalm.

Or from fate.

Sleep and Tony weren't that well acquainted , anymore, so, when the bedroom doors crashed open, he was just alarmed.

Not really surprised.

He had been expecting her.

He sat up in bed and the covers fell away from him.

Liv's self-induced mutation kept her from looking any older than she had when she used to playfully burst into his bedroom, back in the good old days, in the seventies. Extremis had kept Tony in youthful good shape, but even though they might not look any different, it had been miles and years since then.

The last time he had seen her was in the thick of battle.

She had slashed a big hole in his suit, right through the liner that he stored in his bones with that adamantium machete, leaving a bloody gash all the way across his chest.

She thrust her hand into the slash she had made in his armor, to feel how deep it had gone, and it was the closest they had been since the war began.

"I can feel your heart pounding under my hand, Tony." She told him.

Pulled out her hand, swung back the machete.

"Let's see how good your Extremis powers really are."

"Harlequin! Stand down! Now!" Steve had ordered.

But Cap was dead, and there was no one there now, to stop her from killing him.

She was in full costume; there was no question she had come to kill him.

And she was going to finish it the way she had started it.

She unsheathed the adamantium machete.

He sat up in his bed, naked, in the dark.

"Please, Napalm, not like this. Give me a chance to defend myself."

"Nobody gave Cap a chance to defend himself, you son of a bitch!"

Tony played the very last card he had.

He got out of bed and walked over to her.

"What the hell are you doing?" she asked.

"If you're going to kill me, shouldn't I get a last request?" he asked.

Tony pulled Liv's cowl off, put his arm around her waist, held her as close to his body as he could and kissed her.

The machete fell out of her hand, and landed on the floor.

_Is she really kissing me back?_

_ Well, I don't have two tongues._

Liv pushed him onto his back, on the bed, took off her weapons and her boots, and got on top of him.

Only the moon lit them.

"Granted, you lousy bastard!"

Was she really that cold-blooded?

After almost 40 years of being friends, colleagues, lovers, was she really going to give him one last screw and then cut him in half?

Tony decided he didn't care.

What the fuck, everybody's got to go, sometime.

"Napalm." He found himself groaning.

She unzipped her boiler suit halfway; unusually, she was naked under it.

He reached for her breasts and she grabbed his wrists, hard.

"Wait a fuckin' second. You are a dirty, murdering traitor of a sunnuvabitch, you know that?"

"Napalm, please…"

"I should have let you die in the street!"

"Then what are you doing?"

"Shut the fuck up!"

She let go of his wrists, and he cupped her breasts in his hands, squeezing gently, and raised himself off the pillows to put his lips around each plump, pink nipple.

Tweaking and licking and sucking, savouring the moans and groans she was making.

He unzipped her costume all the way and he peeled the boiler suit off of her.

Her hair was tied back in a long braid that hung all the way down past her ass, and he undid it, releasing her hair all over both of them.

Groaning, they rolled over and Tony was tangled in her hair like fire, kissing her and she was pushing his head down.

Making soft, quiet, strangled gasps.

He had it again, a taste of hellfire on his lips.

Then a flood.

She was pulling his hair harder than she had ever pulled it, grinding her sex against his face, and he just couldn't get enough of her, pulling her jerking, twitching body closer, pushing her legs apart further as she came, violently.

She cursed him violently, too, through clenched teeth.

"You still like it, don't you, you son of a bitch, you dirty motherfucker! If you like it, take it all! Take it, you lousy son of a bitch!"

He got up from between her legs and mounted her, and pushed the sweaty tendrils of wet red hair out of her face.

Tony kissed her forehead, he kissed her on her closed eyes, he kissed her lips, he thrust into her, in passion and hunger, and she hissed and wound her legs and her arms around him in kind.

She was angry, alright, he could feel the fury in her body, and he wasn't going to knock it out of her. The closer she got to orgasm, the angrier she got holding onto him hard enough to hurt him.

But he was so far from anything like pain, he couldn't feel it.

And if this was it, he couldn't resist the urge to talk dirty to her, one last time.

"If you hate me so much, why are you so hot and so wet for me? Just like you've always been. You may hate me now, but your body still loves me. Your pussy still loves me, it wants more. It always wants more. I know you. I know just how you want me to fuck you. You don't have to tell me how, baby, but do it. Tell me one more time."

"Harder!" she hissed.

He pulled out of her, reared up, pulled her body down to his, grabbed her legs by the ankles and thrust into her, hard and deep.

"I know, Napalm, I know." He told her.

She screamed.

"YOOOOWWW! OH, FUCK! OH, TONY, OH FUCK!"

He was hitting her sweet spot with every thrust, he could tell by the way she was squeezing him, moving with him; he let go of her legs and braced himself against the headboard of the bed.

He didn't care if she killed him, he really didn't.

No less than Batman, her own stepfather warned Tony that someday she'd kill him, that they called her Napalm because she burns things down, and he would be one of them.

So what, big deal, what the hell did he have left to live for, anyway?

"That's right, you little red devil, give me all your hellfire. I don't care if you kill me. If I can't ever fuck you like this again, I don't want to live. I want your hellfire. I need it. It feels good. Burn me, Napalm. Squeeze my cock, baby, make me come, burn me down!"

He was getting really close, and she was there, she was coming all over him, creaming all over his balls, gasping, and howling and her body undulating beneath his, like a snake.

It felt so goddamn good, and when he came it almost felt like he was on fire, his eyes were closed and he was grunting and cursing and gasping.

If this was going to be his last fuck, goddamn, it had been a good one.

He rolled off of her, onto his back, panting.

"Alright, go ahead and kill me, I'm ready to die!" he exclaimed.

She was giving him a really funny look.

"You crazy motherfucker! You know, it's not bad enough you're a dirty, murdering traitor. And a drunk. But you're such a fucking whore." She told him, and tried to get out of bed.

Tony had just about as much as he was going to put up with out of her, and he pulled her back in.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? Are you trying to cast that as rape? Because you can't rape the willing, and if I wasn't willing, I would have thrown you out of bed."

"Don't you have any pride?"

"No. I am a drunk and a whore. Just like you. You come here in a fit of righteous anger to execute me, and end up in bed with me? That's fairly whorish, don't you think? And you've got a lot of room to talk about murder. You've killed more people than cancer. Get off your high horse, Napalm. It doesn't suit you, at all."

"How could you do it, Tony? Change your mind and stab us all in the back? Throw us into a…a fucking concentration camp in the Negative Zone? What the fuck happened to you?"

"I thought I was doing the right thing, that's what. I never saw registration as fascist and oppressive and unreasonable. You never understood, none of you did. It was registration or back to the Keene Act. To forced retirement. And who would that have been good for. Not us. Not the country. Not the world. Jesus, Napalm, not everyone is a superhero. Ordinary people, we scare them sometimes, you know? And all they wanted was for us to have to account to them for something. You've never accounted to anyone for anything. Your father's the Joker, and he and Batman both knew you'd grow up and leave bodies in the streets, they just fixed it so they'd be badguy bodies. Not that I'm knocking you. But, did it ever occur to you, that kind of thing frightens people? That kind of power? All they wanted was an accounting. Was that too much to ask?"

"Yeah, Tony. It was. This is America, Jack, remember? Land of Free? Home of Brave? Bill of Rights? My rights as an American don't end when I put on a mask, especially when I do it for the greater good of this crazy fuckin' country. If they wanna passa law to outlaw us, fine. Them's the breaks. When they need us, they'll repeal. It's bad enough with the Mutant Registration Laws. You know what Eddie and his family have to go through, keepin' their mutation quiet? And since 1985, me too? You know why? Because mutants don't have the same rights as other people. And somebody has to be lookin' out for them from the outside. Now there's only a few of us left. Sure, that'll change, but, you know how it feels? You know how they treat my son? I was born a freak and an outcast, but at least they don't take your rights for that! And this is shit coming out of the Bush White House, the worst, most corrupt, oligarchical anti-democratic administration in American history? They may have told you all they wanted was an accounting, but that was bullshit. Fucking bullshit." Liv retorted.

"Maybe it was. Now, I honestly don't know, anymore. But I thought it was right, Liv. I thought I was saving lives. You don't think I knew what it was, getting into bed with George and his cronies? I knew. After 9-11, the whole ball game changed. I was scared for what would happen to us if we didn't register. Gitmo is a big place. Big enough for a lot of us. I thought I was saving our freedom. Maybe even saving our lives. I never expected it to go as far as it did, to all-out war. I never knew I could go as far as I did. I didn't. I certainly never expected Steve to get killed. If you want to know the truth, ever since he died, I feel like everything I did was worth nothing. And if Eddie is right about all of this being some grand conspiracy by supervillians as yet unknown to undermine us, then we've all been run amok. And, the kicker is, when it comes to that kind of shit, nobody has a nose for it like Eddie Blake. Maybe he's right. Maybe it is all a big fucking cosmic joke. "

"Yeah. And it's on you, Tony. Whoever they might be, they sure played you like a fuckin' violin, didn't they?"

"Yes they did. So fucking what? At least I never lost my sobriety. So what do you want me to do, about it Liv? Kill myself? Go to Steve's grave and slice open my wrists? Lay down and let you cut off my head?"

"That's what you deserve."

"Bullshit! Fucking bullshit! If you think that's what I deserve, what the hell are we doing in bed together, with my come on your tits and your pussy on my moustache? Well? Got an answer for that, Napalm? If you want me dead, if I deserve to die, then why didn't you come in here and blow my head off instead of fucking my brains out?"

"I don't know? How the fuck should I know? I know I came here to kill you, I don't fucking know why I didn't! Do you know how angry I am at you? Didn't you notice?"

"No, not especially. When you get angry, you get violent. Most of the people you get mad enough to kill end up dead, or at least wishing they were. You're a brutal, violent son of a bitch, my little red-haired superhero ultravixen, and when you're angry with people, they notice it. What I did notice was you grinding your pussy into my face and calling me a son of a bitch and telling me to take it. That was actually pretty fucking hot. I'm getting hard again, just thinking about it, if you want to know the truth. That's what I noticed. You being a drunk and whore, and not caring how mad you were at me, when you saw me with my cock out, you wanted to fuck. And me, of course, also being a drunk and a whore, I could care less if you were going to kill me, if you wanted it, I was going to give it to you. And if you still don't want to kill me, I'm ready to give it to you, again."

"You're a madman, Tony. A fucking madman. I came here to kill you."

"Bullshit! If you came here to kill me, I'd be dead. Besides, every other woman I've ever really cared about, except Pepper, either loathes me, or is six feet under. Who else do I have?"

Liv chuckled.

"Well, you filthy traitor of a gutter drunk and an old whore, all you can scare up is me. Me, an old time shanty Irish drunk, and a killer and a horny old whore to boot. Guilty as charged, Tony. Did you have your four drinks, today?"

"I haven't even had one."

The Harlequin got out of bed and fixed them both a double whiskey.

"Down the hatch." She said.

They drank, and she got back into bed.

"I prefer to think of you as the red-haired porno queen of superhero ultravixens." Tony told her.

"And I prefer to think of you as an old time matinee-idol, a real life swashbuckling hero, with a twinkle in his eye and mischief in his heart." Liv replied.

"Well, then, let's be kind to each other, Napalm, because the world won't be. And, you know I love it when you're bad. Come on. Let's reconcile. You can call me some more filthy names, and we'll get around to our favourite number."

"Tony, just for a minute, be fucking serious and quit thinking about your cock for one minute. What do you really want with me?"

"Liv, I'm all alone in the world. I feel like a dirty, murdering traitor. I just killed my best friend. That's how it feels. I feel like I was the one who pulled the trigger. I need you. For 38 years we were friends, we worked together, I never got my own day of the week, but we slept together, too. And then this war happened and you were gone, and now my best friend is dead. And I feel like everyone on God's Green Earth has turned their back on me. Please, try to forgive me, Liv. I need you."

"Alright, Tony. I'll try."

It was one of those terrible moments that lasts a million years, and then the familiar thrill of her hard, tattooed little hand stroking his cock.

"Jesus, you are getting hard again, aren't you? And it is my lucky number. I know I'm going to hell for this, I fucking know I am…"

"…but what a way to go…"

***

Just around dawn, Tony was riding down in the elevator with Napalm, in his bathrobe.

"So, does this mean that everything is alright with us, again?" he asked, hopefully,

"No. But it means it's good enough. I'm sorry, Tony. But the way I feel is the way I feel."

"It's alright, Napalm. You said you'd try to forgive me. I'll wait."

The elevator doors opened.

"Will you be back again, sometime?" he asked.

"Ain't I always? I'll wait for you in the lobby. You can give me a ride to work."

"You came to kill me in a cab?"

"Yeah. It was a spur of the moment thing. I gotta find a pay phone. Call Eddie. I just got up in the middle of the night and said I was goin' to kill you and split."

"Liv, why don't you break down and buy a cell phone?"

"I hate those fuckin' things! Computers, OK, fine. But those fuckin' cell phones? Fuck'm. It's like a fuckin' leash."

"You can use mine on the way downtown."

"Whatever. Thanks."

There were about a million things Tony wanted to say to her, but he didn't say them.

Something was better than nothing, he decided, and rode back up in the elevator to get dressed, and face the world.

Tony Stark, Iron Man, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.


	5. And In The End, the Love You Make

**Chapter Four: And In the End, The Love You Make…**

**Afghanistan, 2009**

**I: Tony**

Begin at the beginning, and end at the end.

It wasn't easy to do alone and it wasn't easy to be alone.

Not anymore.

"Well, this is where it all started. Well, not exactly. But then, again, I'm not sure. Afghanistan. Vietnam. It's all the same war, isn't it? Or maybe not. I honestly don't know. I'm sure I had a reason to bring you here, Big Guy. And here we are, alone together. And I'm talking to myself. If I had much of a mind left, I'd say I was out of my mind."

Tony looked at his Post-It Notes, plastered all over all the equipment.

He continued to speak to the suit.

"Maybe it's for the best. This is the price I pay. For all those years of hubris. I was the Great Tony Stark, Illuminatus. For the War. For Steve. Hell, even for the Hulk. You see, once my head's empty, the badguys, they won't be able to get any information about my fellow masks. They'll be safe, and me, I'll be, well, I'll be dead. Or something like it."

He wandered over to the corner, where he had a cot set up, and lay down on it.

"Nothing to do. Nothing to see."

Post-It Notes on the cave walls.

How to use a screwdriver.

How to work a computer.

What to do when you're bored.

"I know that one. I don't even have to look. I'll bet it says jerk off. That I can still do. Yeah. That's what it says. "Jerk off." Maybe that's what will become of me. I'll be some drooling vegetable in the rubber rooms at the MORC, sitting on the floor of a padded cell and mindlessly jerking off, all day long. And laughing like an idiot. Oh well. At least I'll be enjoying myself."

It would have been nice, Tony was thinking, to have a woman.

He still had enough presence of mind to fuck, and while he had his hand down his shorts, he was thinking about lots and lots of satisfied customers.

He couldn't remember why, here at the end, none of his lovers were with him.

He remembered Pepper, but she wasn't one of them, and he knew why she wasn't with him. But all his other women?

Where had they all gone?

Had he been that much of a prick and a jerk and an asshole?

Probably.

Somewhere in the heat of the day, Tony fell asleep, and while he was asleep, he had a dream about a woman.

One he had been thinking about, quite a bit.

She was a red-haired woman, but she wasn't Pepper.

Her hair was much longer, down past her ass, and a shade darker than Pepper's.

She had the sunniest smile, and the craziest laugh, and he dreamt of her as he slept, dreams about things that had to have taken place over many, many years.

He woke up with her name on his lips.

"Napalm. Trivelino J. Napier. The J. doesn't stand for anything. Napalm. I still remember. I still remember you, Napalm."

***

He got up and ate something, and did a little more work, but then he began to get confused, so he went back to sleep, again.

There was nothing more to do, anyway.

Not for me to reason why.

Tomorrow I will do, and die.

A sound woke him up, and Tony was, in his addled state, slow to awaken, slow to react.

He couldn't do anything but sit up and peer into the dark.

"Who's there?" he asked.

"No. I'm still dreaming. No, I'm not dreaming. Napalm! It's you! You're really here!"

"You remember me, Tony?"

"Nobody else came. A whole lifetime of women I don't remember. But I remember you. And here you are."

He laid back, and opened his arms to her.

She took off her sweaty clothes and her dusty boots and lay down beside him on the cot.

Tony was happy.

He cuddled Liv in his arms, breathed in the familiar smell of her hair, held her tight against his chest.

He didn't understand much, anymore; he was confused and frightened, but this was something that still made sense to him.

She's my friend.

Tony remembered something, an allusion to a book.

What book, he didn't recall.

"It's good to have you here with me, Trivelino J. Napier, here at the end of all things."

"Jesus, Tony, you're going to make me cry."

She was crying, he could feel her tears running down his chest.

"Don't cry, Napalm. I have to do this."

"No you don't! Let me kill him, Tony. I've killed everything on this earth that walks and crawls and flies, human and animal and robot and otherwise. Save what's left of your mind. Let me take care of him. Osbourne. I'll cut him out of that fucking suit, and rip him to pieces with my bare hands."

"That won't help, Napalm. What he wants is in my mind. And even if he's dead, the rest of his cabal will still want it. My mind has to go. That's it."

"Jesus, Tony!"

"You think I want to die? But I made my bed. Now I'm going to have to lie in it. Don't cry, Liv. This is all the time you and I have left together. Just tonight. You can cry after I'm dead."

He stroked her red head, trying to soothe her.

"You know what else I remember? I remember the first time we made love. In your car. After we broke out of jail, in Mexico. And I remember how I helped you and your sons get out of New York, before Ozymandias could kill you all. I remember the last time I saw you. We were in my car, driving through New York after New York was rebuilt. I was speeding. And you had your head in my lap. And I had the radio blasting. It was like being the teenage king of the world. Vixen. Red-haired porno queen of superhero ultravixens."

"Yeah. I remember all that, too. And I forgive you, Tony. And I'm not just telling you that because you're dying. I forgive you."

"Now I'm crying. Jesus, Napalm, how did we end up here?"

"I don't know. I don't want to talk anymore."

"I don't, either. Well, what do you say, Liv? One more for the road?"

"Yeah, Tony. One more for the road."


End file.
